Bone cancer that originates in the bone — primary bone cancer — is rare. Fewer than 2,500 Americans are diagnosed with this type of cancer each year. The condition affects more children than adults. Bone cancer is a malignant (cancerous) tumor of the bone that destroys normal bone tissue (1). Not all bone tumors are malignant. In fact, benign (noncancerous) bone tumors are more common than malignant ones. Both malignant and benign bone tumors may grow and compress healthy bone tissue, but benign tumors do not spread, do not destroy bone tissue, and are rarely a threat to life.
Most of the time when someone with cancer is told they have bone cancer, the doctor is talking about a cancer that spread there from somewhere else. This is called metastatic cancer and can be seen in people with advanced breast cancer, prostate cancer, lung cancer as well as many others. When these cancers in the bone are examined under a microscope they resemble the tissue they came from. If someone has lung cancer spread to bone, the cells of the cancer look and act like lung cancer cells, not bone cancer cells, even after they have spread from the lungs to the bones. They are treated with the same kind of treatment (chemotherapy drugs, for example) that is used for lung cancer.
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